This invention relates generally to the field of voice communications and more particularly to compression or reduction of data required for voice communications.
Voice communication is typically conducted over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), in which a virtual dedicated circuit is established for each call. In such a circuit, a real-time connection is established that allows two-way transmission of data during the telephone call. Data communication can also be performed on such virtual circuits. However, data communication is increasingly being performed on wide-area data networks, such as the Internet, which provide a widely available and low-cost shared communications medium. Voice communications over such data networks is possible and is attractive because of the potentially lower cost of communicating over data networks, and the simplicity and lower cost of performing data and voice communications over a single network. However, the real-time nature of voice communications, coupled with the bandwidth required for such communication, often makes use of data networks for voice communication impractical. The bandwidth required for conventional voice communication also limits the use of services such as video conferencing which require significant additional amounts of bandwidth.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques that reduce the amount of transmitted data required for voice communications.
In a principal aspect, the present invention reduces the amount of data required to be transmitted for voice communication. In accordance with a first object of the invention, voice data is transmitted by generating, in response to voice inputs (110) from a user, speech sample data (112) indicative of a sample of the user""s voice. During a communication session, voice transmission data is generated as a function of the user""s voice spoken during the communication session. The voice transmission data is then transmitted to a receiving station (101) designated in the communication session. The user""s spoken voice is then recreated at the receiving station as a function of the speech sample data (112).
Transmission of voice data in such a manner greatly reduces the bandwidth required for voice communication. Voice communications over data networks therefore becomes more feasible because the reduced bandwidth helps to alleviate the latency often encountered in data networks. A further advantage is that the decreased bandwidth required by voice communications frees bandwidth for transmission of additional data, such as video data for video-conferencing.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention may be better understood by considering the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention. In the course of this description reference will be frequently made to the attached drawings.